Anwar vs Abdullah in Malaysia’s Casino Royale

by AW

Here's a light moment to share with you after all the intense build-up to September 16.

In a no-table-limit poker game between two players, the winner is not necessary the one with the best cards. It could also be the one with the highest amount of chips, or the one with the biggest bluff, or both.

This paragraph may look redundant, but let’s re-visit the rules of the poker game. When a player is challenged with large amount of chips, but believes that he holds the strongest card, he can either “up the ante” or place a “call”. That is provided he has enough chips to do either one. Otherwise, he has to “fold” and the opponent who challenged him wins, despite having inferior cards.

So in the case of Anwar Ibrahim vs Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is Anwar the one calling a bluff? Does he even have enough chips to call the bluff? Or does he really have the strongest card to win the game?

In the author’s opinion, a good poker player does not only want to win, but win with the highest possible margin. That means you have to play the game until you have all three. Even if you have the strongest card and challenge your opponent with the biggest stake, you still give the impression that you are calling a bluff to entice your opponent to follow with a “call”, or even better, “to up the ante”.

But what if you haven’t even played the final card? What if your opponent’s position improves after drawing the final card?

The current situation in Malaysia is even better than the movies “God of Gamblers” and “Casino Royale”. The game is played as though both sides do not even have the ability to see their own cards!
To make matters even more complicated, what if this is a no-holds-barred poker game that is played by many in convoluted levels of deceptions? Perhaps there is no end-game and no singular winner? Certainly the real con in the game is the game itself, which convinces us that there is a con, when the con might not be what we think it is and the revelation may not explain anything.

In that case, we may have infinite levels of deceptions. The thing is, no one knows for sure. Perhaps the quantum theory of abstract mathematical object that allows for the calculation of probabilities of outcomes of experiments will better explain the above situation. Can someone please call Stephen Hawking!

Note:
This article was published in Malaysiakini on 17 Sept under the title "Abdullah vs Anwar: Who Will Fold First".


It reached no. 2 on the day's most read letter.

...and no.3 on the week's most read letter.